Thursday, June 19, 2014

NOM, where did the money go?

Photo credit: Michael Kay, Washington Blade

Today National Organization for Marriage and Family Research Council (among others) staged a staggering failure — the second annual “March for Marriage.” NOM started advertising this demonstration on April 8. In May NOM claimed:

We know of over 100 buses, full of marriage champions, that will be making their way to the nation's capital, and many of these folks still need help in paying their way. Your bus sponsorship donations are beginning to make this possible.

Amazingly, just yesterday I learned of even more marchers who want to charter buses for the March for Marriage.

I don't know where those donations went but they sure didn't fund 100 buses which would have brought about 5,500 people to DC. I am only quoting a small snippet of the hyperbole generated by Brian Brown over the last three months. I doubt that Mr. Brown is amazed by anything other than his abject failure given that only about 2,000 people showed up. This issue has two elements:

Donors were deceived and;

Those funds were intended for NOM Education Fund (which is what made them tax deductible). Even that was a stretch but if those funds ended up in NOM's coffers then once again they facilitated tax evasion because donations to NOM are not tax deductible.

It's almost like The Producers. They made more money by not having to fund the buses.

In an email to supporters, Tony Perkins claimed a huge victory:

Whoever said the marriage debate was over must not have been anywhere near the U.S. Capitol this morning. After months of hearing the courts’ opinion on marriage, today America heard from the voters those courts trampled. Thousands of people from states all across the country descended on Washington, D.C. to show the nation that we care about protecting marriage …

More than 150 buses, filled with the marriage supporters the media insists do not exist, cheered through the passionate speeches of Republicans and Democrats, blacks and Hispanics, and the young and old …

If there were 150 buses, as Tony claims, then each carried about a dozen people (capacity is usually 55). There's nothing like claiming a spectacular failure is an enormous success. It just shows you how willing the self-righteous Perkins is to spread the fertilizer.